The Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s statement on publication of The National Archives’ Information Management Assessment report

March 2015

The FCO participated in The National Archives’ Information Management Assessment programme in July 2014. The report published today covers the FCO’s offices in the UK and overseas.

As an early participant in the Information Management Assessment programme, the FCO is the first department to be re-assessed. I welcome the latest report, which recognises the work we have undertaken to improve upon our previous assessment ratings in 2009. I am pleased that our examples of good practice and ongoing commitment to improvement have been acknowledged.

The FCO has an excellent working relationship with The National Archives, and I am grateful not only for their ongoing support, but also for their recognition of the challenges that managing information in a global organisation can present. I recognise that we need to improve our practice in a number of areas, and I take on board the recommendations made in the report.

We are now developing our detailed action plan to address the areas for further development, notably information risk and digital recordkeeping. We look forward to working in collaboration with The National Archives to ensure that the FCO preserves its records and information for future generations of policy-makers and historians.

Sir Simon Fraser Permanent Under-Secretary Foreign & Commonwealth Office